


The Whole Story

by unadrift



Series: SGA Season Five Tags [15]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-29
Updated: 2009-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-03 23:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unadrift/pseuds/unadrift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John shows up at his door that night, carrying a sixpack of beer. Rodney follows him into the transporter and out to the pier. They settle down, feet dangling over the edge, and John hands him a can.<br/>"So," Rodney says, after they each have finished off a beer. "I figure this is your subtle way of telling me that you want to talk?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Whole Story

**Author's Note:**

> Tag for _Remnants_, beta'd by tacittype.

John shows up at his door that night, carrying a sixpack of beer. Rodney follows him into the transporter and out to the pier. They settle down, feet dangling over the edge, and John hands him a can.

"So," Rodney says, after they each have finished off a beer. "I figure this is your subtle way of telling me that you want to talk?"

"Not really," John answers warily.

"Uh-huh. You dragged me out here just to sit down and stare at the ocean? Which is very dark, as you can see. Or, as a matter of fact, _not_ see. It's not exactly warm out here, and while it's kind of nice to just hang out and drink your awful excuse for beer, we could do that somewhere else where it's less--"

"What was the fake Zelenka like?" John asks. He is looking straight ahead, his profile betraying nothing. "Could you tell a difference?"

Usually Rodney is the one making the giant leaps in conversation, and that is why he can catch up easily. "No, not at the time," he answers. "But, thinking back now, he was far too nice to me. Even told me I was brilliant. Which I knew, of course. Still, it was nice to hear him admit it. That should have clued me in right in the beginning."

"But it didn't."

"No. Zelenka was-- very much himself. Like I expected him to be. The A.I. was very good at picking minds."  
Rodney thinks he sees John flinch at that, but he can't be sure in the dark. "You never told me what happened to you. What did the A.I. show you?"

John definitely flinches now. "It just-- distracted me. Apparently I was a threat to its mission. I needed to be distracted."

"Yes," Rodney says impatiently. "I know that. You told us before. What you have yet to tell me is _how_ it distracted you."

It takes John a while, but he does answer this time. "Kolya."

Rodney can feel the blood drain from his face. "Kolya," he repeats. "If that hallucination was in any way realistic, it can't have been pleasant."

"It wasn't."

Oh. With John sounding like that, Rodney almost doesn't want to know. "What did he--"

"He threatened to take over Atlantis, threatened to kill everyone. The usual. In the spirit of the classic villain he told me all about his plans, that he was going to send a bomb through the gate."

"But you knew that he needed an IDC for that, so--"

After a moment of meaningful silence Rodney clues in. "He tortured you for the IDC?"

"It was Kolya as I remember him. What do you think?

"I think that I'm going to be sick," Rodney says, imagining all the ways that Kolya could have-- No. He is not going to let his imagination run wild now. He's _not_ going to.

John takes a deep breath, and another one. He still hasn't looked anywhere but the black space straight ahead of him. "You haven't heard the worst part yet," he says.

All the clever tactics that John has ever invented to hide himself, to hide what he's feeling – they don't work here. John's voice isn't neutral, his body isn't relaxed, far from it. This is John trying to find the courage to go on, Rodney realizes. And that just doesn't make any sense. If there was a way that it possibly could, Rodney is sure that he would be better off not knowing about it.

But it seems that he hasn't got a choice.

"His backup plan was to fly the jumper into the city," John goes on, then falters.

"And you were supposed to be the pilot?" Rodney asks, because even though he doesn't like it, he can't leave John alone in this.

"Not exactly," John answers slowly. "He knew that I wouldn't do it."

"But Kolya hasn't got the gene. How did he expect to activate--"

John looks down now, stares intently at his left hand while he is circling the wrist with his right.

"No," Rodney says, horrified. "No. He didn't. Tell me he didn't. You thought it was all real, and Kolya--"

"He had a machete," John says, distantly, and flexes the fingers of his left hand. "I could still feel the hand, even though it wasn't there anymore."

Rodney thinks he might actually be sick. Right now, here over the edge of the pier.

"You have to give it to the A.I.," John says and releases a strange sound that is something between a laugh, a sob, and cough. "The whole thing was pretty damn distracting."

"But why Kolya? I don't get it. If it was just for distraction, why torment you like that? The A.I.-- It could just have shown you a, a--" he makes a vague gesture, "--willing version of, what's her name, that botanist! The woman who lured you out to the main land? You'd have been way distracted by sex! But instead you got--" Rodney trails off and stares into the darkness in front of him. "To think that I was feeling really good about saving an entire species and everything. I wish we'd just downloaded the damn data from the device, or-- No, we should have blown the thing to hell right in the--"

"It was me," John interrupts him, his voice flat. "My subconscious, my scenario. The choice was mine."

The answer is like a punch to the stomach. "Wait," Rodney says. He feels completely numb from shock. "Wait. You _chose_ Kolya? You chose to be tortured, to-- to lose a hand? Instead of--"

"Whatever else I could have imagined." John turns his head to meet Rodney's eyes for the first time that night. There are layers and layers of emotion on his face, a superposition that Rodney can't separate into its single signals. All he knows for sure is that it sends a shiver of deep unease down his spine.

"Rodney," John says, in a whisper. "Sometimes I scare myself."

Rodney is speechless, completely and utterly at a loss for words. He is fighting the urge to run from this conversation, to run as fast as he can. Because Rodney is not good with other people's feelings. Most of the time he doesn't even understand his own. John shouldn't tell this to _him_, shouldn't expect help and-- and-- whatever it is he expects from Rodney. Rodney can only screw this up. He doesn't want to screw this up. He really, really wishes Kate Heightmeyer was still here.

"The A.I. told me that I torture myself every day," John continues, regardless of Rodney's impending panic attack. John never gives away personal information voluntarily, but it seems that when he finally gets started with the revelations, there is no stopping him.

"What?" The last sentence doesn't quite register with Rodney at first. He mentally rewinds and listens to it again. "You 'torture yourself every day'? What does that even mean?"

John kicks his feet out into thin air. "No idea."

"But it's _your_ subcon--"

"I don't know!" John yells. Suddenly he is dangerously close, leaning right into Rodney's space. And John _is_ scared, so scared that it makes Rodney's stomach turn to just look at him. If Rodney thought he'd seen John afraid before-- He hadn't. He really hadn't. Not like this.

Rodney swallows hard. "Tell me."

"What?"

"Everything. Whatever it is that--" He can't say the t-word again. "Tell me."

John just keeps staring at him, his eyes wide, his breathing quick and shallow. For once, John is the one panicking. Rodney knows panic when he sees it.

"Look at yourself," Rodney says, refusing to back away from him, from this. "You _know_. And you're so afraid of it that it paralyzes you. You-- You're scaring _me_."

"I--," John says. "I don't--"

John lifts his hand, probably to run it through his hair, or to rub his neck, like he does when he's nervous. But he freezes, with his hand in mid-air, staring at it. It's his left.

Without conscious decision, Rodney reaches out to catch it with his own. "It's okay," he says. "It wasn't real. You can feel this, right?" He squeezes the cool skin beneath his fingers. "It's okay. It didn't really happen. You're back home. You're safe." Rodney is babbling and he knows it.

His words don't even seem to reach John, whose concentration is still focused entirely on something else.Slowly, John moves to cover Rodney's hand with his right, then he holds completely still, studying the contact point, the origin of the shiver-inducing skin-on-skin sensation. Rodney looks, too. John brushes his thumb over Rodney's fingers. And does it again. And again.

It makes Rodney's breath hitch.

John meets his eyes, and all Rodney can think is, _oh._

He knows what's coming now, should have seen it coming for a while.

But nothing happens. They sit in silence, Rodney's hand clasped between John's. They breathe almost in sync. John looks more agonized with every passing second.

Rodney's logical reasoning tells him that it's John who must make the move. That these are John's issues to overcome. But while Rodney prides himself on the flawlessness of his logic, he has never been famous for his patience. He suddenly can't think of anything that he ever wanted to do more desperately than place his free hand on John's cheek and lean in to kiss him, right now. So he does.

It's not cathartic, or passionate, or anything equally bombastic. It's just his lips touching John's for the shortest of moments, and it's John, staying completely still. Then John's hands twitch against his, jerking away.  
For a moment, Rodney is sure that he has just made the biggest mistake of his life.

But John doesn't pull away. His hands come up to cup Rodney's face, his eyes search Rodney's for confirmation, for permission. He finds it, because _yes_, and then they're kissing, sharing breath and space and _everything_, probably more than Rodney can grasp right now, and John mumbles Rodney's name against his mouth, pulls him away from the edge, pushes him down on the pier, and follows to cover him completely.

It's hotter and more desperate than Rodney could have imagined. It's lips sliding against his, John's tongue licking the corner of his mouth, a hand running through his hair, and one sliding under his shirt, cool on his skin. It's John's arms, holding on tight to him, and John's breath, hot and panting in his ear. It's the rush Rodney feels when he rolls them over, the way they freeze and just look at each other, before both leaning in again at the same time. It puts every descriptive metaphor that has ever been invented for the act of kissing to shame.

They end up catching their breath on their backs, shoulder to shoulder, looking up at the stars.

Rodney translates his first coherent thought into words. "This is not the whole story, is it?"

John gives a bitter laugh. "It would be nice if it was."

"But this--" Rodney gestures between them, "--helps?"

"Rodney, I don't want you to 'help' me." John turns his head to glance at Rodney sideways. "Look, do you want this, or not? Because I don't need your--"

"No! I want this. God, you have no idea. I had no idea. But I do. Want this." Rodney's hand brushes against the back of John's between them. John presses back, strokes with the back of his fingers, and somehow they wind up holding hands, on the pier, under the stars. It should have been ridiculous, but it wasn't.

"You realize that I'm pretty fucked up, right?" John says conversationally after a while.

"I couldn't help but notice, yes." Rodney would have been blind and deaf not to, even before today. "Um, I've been told that I'm not the easiest person to be with, either."

"So long as we're clear on that."

"Crystal clear," Rodney confirms. "You: fucked up, me: difficult. Check."

"Right. Check." There is a small smile hidden in John's voice. Rodney doesn't need to turn his head to see it.

He squeezes John's hand. John squeezes back.


End file.
